Teddy Mug

This is my first post. My first post on my first night of my second time being away as a college student. It's not so bad, I'm only in Orlando, still in Florida and even closer than when I was in Gainesville (Go Gators!). Anyway, I wanted to write about a mug I drank coffee from this morning. My mom served me some milk and coffee in this Teddy mug I've had since about 1989. When I realized she had served it in that mug, I started laughing. It's kind of a sentimental thing.

The mug was given to me as part of a secret-Santa gift exchange in the first grade. I didn't really know what was going on except that this huge guy (obviously) dressed up as Santa and walked into the classroom with all the presents our parents had bought in a red sack. All the kids started screaming "Santa! Santa!" So then this guy who really looked like Santa pulled up a chair (it couldn't have been one of those small blue chairs we used in elementary because I swear he would've broken the damn thing) and started poring through his big red sack (does "big red sack" sound disturbing?) and he just starts to give presents away left and right. So then I see some kids unwrapping their gifts and they're all happy because they're getting toy cars and planes and whatnot and I start to get excited too. I'm going to get myself a new toy car or plane! I was waiting for my turn and then I see him go through his bag and he pops out with this square box in green wrapping paper. And I'm looking at it thinking, 'There's no way there can be a toy car in that little box.' Santa looks straight into my eyes, his hand holding the box from underneath and his arm extended toward me, and he hands me my gift, and I knew, I knew OK, that what was in that box was not something I wanted. But I open the damn gift because I held out hope that maybe this was a special toy car in a special box, and I wasn't going to know unless I opened it up.

So after I had torn through the paper, gotten over my dismay of the box, and then opened the box itself, I had myself a Teddy mug. Right after I had taken the mug out of the box, I see the kid whose mom had bought the gift stare right at me with a blank expression. It was him! Who the hell gives mugs for Christmas to a six-year-old boy!? He looked away and played with his sparkly, shiny toy cars. I went home and told my mom I got a mug. I cried. She said it was the best gift I could have received.

A few weeks later my class went on a field trip and on the way back from the field trip, in the bus, I happened to sit in front the boy whose mom had bought the gift and his mom, who was a chaperone on the trip. The boy tapped my head and then I turned back and the mom asked me in Spanish "Te gusto la tasita?" She was a really sweet-looking woman, I mean, dulce, sweet. What was I going to say? 'No senora, usted me dio el peor regalo posible en todo el mundo. Por usted, llore.' Of course not, I've always had relatively good manners and I shook my head up and down and said 'Si, me gusto.' She smiled when I said that. I lied, of course, but at least I saw that the gift came with good intention, it wasn't meant as a cruel joke. I also figured that if she were brave enough to ask me if I liked the gift, then hell, maybe it was a good gift.

The mug is white with a bunch of bears printed around it dressed up in sailor suits and dresses and other costumes. I can't really describe it since I don't have it here in front of me. In fact, one bear is flying a kite and another bear has a toy bear, go figure. It's a damn good mug, it's lasted all these years and now it's really grown on me.

I guess it goes to say that even when I was handed something I did not like and that I almost refused to take, but accepted with tears and all, that it's now the best gift I could have ever received (like my mom said). Not a toy or clothes or anything else could have lasted as long as this mug has. And I guess sometimes good things, even great things, come disguised in bad packages. And even then, maybe it was always a good gift, but my six-year-old mind didn't see the use for a mug. It's only with time that you can look back and make sense of things and be able to laugh about everything. My mom jokes around that when I get married I'm going to have to take the mug. She jokes, but she means it. I have to agree, I'll be taking it with me.